Barn Doors and Junk Galore
by Tarie
Summary: Mattress salesman Rodney has a very trying customer. (McShep)


Being a salesman at Mattress World was so _degrading_. Honestly, it was an insult to his intelligence. An untrained monkey could do this job. The only reason he had been hired over an actual untrained monkey was that Rodney McKay did not fling his own feces at others.

Although sometimes (okay, so, a _lot _of times) he was very, very tempted to do so.

One of those times was now, actually. The guy with the annoyingly slinky hips and cool hair (the kind that Rodney wouldn't have been able to pull off in this galaxy or any other, provided his hair actually grew in like a normal person's and not a genius. Geniuses needed maximum cranium space; their bodies did not concern themselves with petty little things like hair follicles.) was looking to be a very, very good target.

He was bouncing up and down on the Sealy Posturepedic mattress that Rodney had been eyeing for weeks. (No way in hell was Rodney going to pay full price for that sucker; he knew where and how it had been made.) Forget the fact that bouncing up and down would ruin the careful engineering that had been designed to eliminate back problems. That wasn't the most important matter at hand. What was the important matter at hand was this: the guy was getting _crumbs _everywhere!

From the looks of the sandwich, it was some cheap piece of crap from Subway. There were shameful, dirty, germ-infested Sandwich Artist baked bread crumbs getting everywhere! If the guy was going to have the nerve to come into a mattress store and get crumbs on a primo mattress, the least he could have done was had the foresight to buy his subs somewhere decent, like Quiznos.

"Excuse me," Rodney said, standing at the foot of the bed and glaring down at the guy. "I have a very important question to ask you."

"Oh, hey there!" the guy returned, momentarily stopping his bouncing and grinning over at Rodney. "Ask away, partner."

Rodney blustered. He was no one's partner. That would have been selling himself short; he would have to dumb everything that came out of his mouth down!

"The name," he said frostily, jerking a finger at the bright yellow nametag on his chest, "is Rodney." He hated that nametag. It reminded him of a lemon. Get ready for work, Rodney. _Don't forget to pin the reminder of your impending death on your chest!_ it seemed to scream at him every morning from its place on the bathroom sink.

"All right, Rodney." With an easy smile, he added, "I'm John. What do inquiring minds wanna know?"

"Were you raised in a barn?"

John blinked. A moment later, one corner of his mouth turned up in a way that was far too beguiling for its own good. "Why?" he asked, and then gestured with his free hand to his crotch. "My barn door's open?"

Rodney's gaze drifted downward for approximately .005 of a second before he realized what he was doing and abandoned ship. "No!" he said a little too quickly, not liking the traitorous way his stomach did a little flip.

"Whew, that's a relief. Do you know how embarrassing it would be if I'd been running errands with my junk hanging out like an overstuffed garbage truck all day?"

That didn't sound at all embarrassing to Rodney, possibly because he was now imagining John buying milk with his junk hanging out, putting letters in a mail box with his junk hanging out, straightening Rodney's yellow nametag of death with his junk hanging out….

"Hey, McFly, anybody home?"

Rodney blanched, finding John _awfully _close to him now. Somewhere in the midst of Rodney's daydream, he'd crawled on his knees to the foot of the mattress. Now they were on the same level and Rodney had a hard time looking away.

"It's McKay," he said mildly, fixated on the way two tufts of John's hair seemed to resemble devil horns. "Not McFly."

"…Yeeeeeah, okay. Cue one pop culture reference zooming straight over your head like a bat out of hell," John said, and then thrust his sandwich up between them. "Wanna bite? It's turkey and bacon and really, really goooooood."

"I don't even know you," Rodney said mildly, looking from John to the sandwich and back again.

As if on cue, his stomach rumbled. Loud like a fighter jet.

The other side of John's lip curled. _Damn him. _"But you'd like to, right?"

Too surprised by John's forwardness, Rodney could only sputter.

John held up a hand. "Look, Rodney. I gotta confession to make. I've been coming to this place three days a week for like a month, just hoping I'd run into you again."

The sputtering continued, although maybe Rodney's eyes managed to convey the "Buh?" his mind was thinking.

"I delivered lunch to Sam, your boss, about five weeks ago. I saw you waiting on some old lady and—"

"Does this sandwich contain any citrus?" Rodney burst out with, having miraculously regained the power of speech.

John looked confused. Rodney got the impression this happened quite a bit.

"What?"

"Does. This. Sandwich. Contain. Any Citrus?"

When John shook his head, every last hair on top twisted and shouted. "No."

"Good," Rodney said, and then kissed the hell out of that guy with the annoyingly slinky hips and cool hair.

Even if there had been citrus in that sandwich, Rodney later decided, he still would have kissed John – and been happy to live to tell about it.


End file.
